Giving
by mockingjelly
Summary: He gives and she takes. She decides it's time to return the favor. Three times that Katniss sees Peeta interacting with children, and how it changes her mind about having one someday. Post-Mockingjay. Everlark.


**A/N**: This is sort of a three times kind of story. Three times that Katniss sees Peeta interacting with kids, and how it changes her opinion about having one someday. Hope you enjoy. :)

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><p>She can't explain it, but he just <em>fits<em>; in her house, in her life, in her heart – always has, always will.

Peeta's been back for three months now, and for the most part, he's been _right here_. Bringing her a loaf of bread every morning, sharing breakfast with her – as the weeks passed by, he started coming over for lunch and dinner, too. Spending the afternoon painting as Katniss would write in their book. Just spending the day together, for no reason at all save the want to see, _be_ with one another.

Katniss's skinning a rabbit while Greasy Sae chops turnips and carrots, her little granddaughter playing around with her blue yarn and an old rag, when Peeta comes in. Katniss turns to greet him, a smile on her face as she smells the dear scent of cheese buns coming from the basket he's holding. "You didn't have to," she says softly, but then her stomach starts growling and they all laugh.

"I couldn't eat them all," Peeta just shrugs, grinning. There are days when it takes him hours to remember who Greasy Sae is, or why there's no bakery anymore; and there are days when he can't stop painting or baking until his fingers are sore, whispering strings of unintelligible words to himself. On these days, Katniss doesn't even have to bother going to the woods; Peeta just comes in, bearing cheese buns and muffins and that bread filled with nuts and raisins that she loves so much. "Do you need any help?" he asks, setting the basket on the table.

"We're fine, boy," Sae says. "But you can set the table if you want," she adds, before turning to her granddaughter, "Come on and help Peeta, girlie."

The little girl looks up, cloudy eyes always lost in a daze, but a small, shy smile adorns her lips as Peeta gives her a smile. "That's a very pretty yarn you've got there," he says gently, pointing at the small fuzzy bundle in her hand. "If you lend me your cloth, I can show you how to make a doll."

At the word _doll_, her pale grey eyes spark. Peeta gives her a grin, and Katniss turns around, leaning against the sink to watch them. She watches as he asks the girl to bring him a basket full of dry flowers; how he holds the middle of the cloth with two fingers and stuffs it with flowers before tying it with a piece of the blue yarn; how he repeats the same action until you can make out the shape of a head, two arms and two legs. It's a flower doll, smelling like summer and the meadow, simple but beautiful.

The little girl beams, holding the doll to her chest and inhaling its sweet scent deeply. "I have a shirt that's too tight now," Peeta tells her. "If you bring your doll over, we can use the buttons to give her eyes," he says. "And I'm sure Katniss will agree to give you some yellow or red or brown yarn to give her some hair."

She reaches her little hand to his face, tracing his cheek with a curious finger, up to the corner of his eye. "Blue," she just says. "Yellow."

"Blue eyes and yellow hair?" Sae repeats, smiling. "My girl with a Merchant doll. You would've never seen that back in my day."

The little girl starts humming a lullaby as she rocks her doll in her arms, and Peeta just smiles. "It's a new day," he says.

Katniss stares at him, half-struck, half in love. "Where did you learn how to do that?" she asks him.

Peeta frowns. He looks at the blue yarn on the floor for a moment before he speaks. "Delly. Her father owned the shoe shop. He made her a doll with an old shirt and shoe laces." His lips twitch in a smile, and Katniss mirrors him; every new memory he remembers is a victory. The smile soon leaves his lips as he continues, "One time, she said I was the daddy and she was the mommy, and I was supposed to take care of the doll, but my dad needed help at the bakery. My mother said it was a waste to use a perfectly fine shirt and shoe laces for a doll, and she tore it down." He pauses, gulping hard as his eyes focus on a nail hung in the wall. "I made her another one with one of the rags at the bakery and some rope. My dad covered for me," he finishes in a whisper.

Sae crosses to him, squeezing his shoulder with her wrinkled, bony hand. She's not a woman of many words; but she's there for these two lost and damaged kids. There's not much to say, really – Peeta's father was a good man, his mother bitter and hurt; talking about either of them is a struggle, the sweet memories just like the bad ones. Sometimes, remembering is as painful as forgetting it all. Her hand lingers a moment on his shoulder, and Peeta lifts his, holding onto Sae's fingers tightly.

It's a new day, Katniss muses as she watches them; Seam and Merchant, friends, almost family. Peeta can't have talked to Sae more than once or twice; surely, their paths never crossed before the Reaping – but here they are, closer than he must have ever been with his own mother. She looks at their hands, and she remembers the feel of Peeta's fingers entwined with hers; not for show, not for the cameras, but in actual friendship, and _more_. She wonders if it would feel the same, now, with their burnt skin.

_It does_.

She can't help it. Sae and her granddaughter leave after lunch, like they always do, but as they reach the door the little girl turns around and wraps her arms around Peeta's leg. She lives in her own world, and so far only Sae seemed to understand her, but it's just like Peeta to worm his way in the most unexpected heart. He ruffles her hair and reminds her to come back later to make her doll pretty. They stand side by side at the door, waving at them as they grow smaller and smaller down the Victors' Village path, and her hand finds his before she can over think it. She can feel the scars under the pad of her thumb as she traces it over the back of his palm, but the cherished steadiness and warmth are back as he squeezes her fingers.

They stand like that for a moment until Peeta breaks the silence. "I wish there were more kids around here," he says softly. Katniss' head snaps, and she looks at him with round eyes. He laughs. "I mean, it'd be good for her to have friends."

"Not everybody is good at making friends," Katniss replies with a shrug.

He gives her a smile, bright and beautiful. "Well, there are people you just can't help but love," he whispers. His eyes lock with hers, and Katniss remembers the night on the beach, the way he put his hand over her belly and their imaginary unborn child.

She was scared back then – she _still_ is – but she can't help but think of what their child would have looked like, if it had ever been real.

* * *

><p>They're both covered in flour when she comes in, and Katniss can't help but smile as she sees Peeta and little Finn perched on a stool, baking together.<p>

She can't believe that he's already _six_. It feels just like yesterday when they got a letter from Annie with a picture of a little baby boy, and now here he is, like every summer, spending half his time with Peeta in the kitchen, and half his time climbing trees with Katniss. It's the first time that Annie lets him come over on his own before joining them, though, and Katniss would have to be _blind_ not to see how happy it makes Peeta.

He gives her a smile and ruffles Finn's hair, white pecks of flour powdering his golden-bronze hair. "Hey," he says, "I was just teaching Finn how to make prawn crackers."

"Oh, is _that_ what you were doing?" Katniss teases as she walks to them, giving Finn's cheek a kiss before Peeta draws her to him, asking for one, too. "I got some blueberries. You boys should think about making me some muffins for dessert."

"Prawn crackers are Mommy's favorite," Finn says proudly. "Peeta is teaching me, and we'll make some for when Mommy comes!"

"I'm sure she'll be proud," Katniss replies sweetly, giving the boy's shoulder a squeeze before leaving the two of them alone. She settles on the couch with a book, smiling as she recognizes the telltale giggle of mischief as Peeta and Finn start devouring her blueberries.

They're quiet and focused for a while after that, and Katniss is about to turn the TV on – damn Plutarch and his addictive singing show – when she hears Finn speak up. "_Peeta_…" he starts, his voice small and hesitant.

She turns her head to look at them, and the little boy is averting his gaze, staring at his hands. Katniss frowns, not understanding why. "What's up, buddy?" Peeta asks, giving his arm a little bump before bending over the kitchen counter, leaning on his elbows to look Finn in the eye.

Finn chews on his lip nervously, briefly glancing at Katniss before giving a nod towards Peeta's prosthetic leg, revealed as he wears shorts. "Does it hurt?" he asks in a whisper.

Peeta shakes his head. "Not really," he replies. "Sometimes, if I walk a lot or if I spend a long time standing up, it can become a bit sore. But I can take it off for the night and then it feels better the next morning." Finn still seems nervous, and Peeta presses him gently. "Why do you want to know that?"

"If a wolf or a bear or a shark ate my leg, would I get a new one?" the little boy asks, trembling at the very thought.

Peeta exchanges a curious look with Katniss before stroking the little boy's arm. "Hey, no one here is going to let a wolf or a bear or a shark nibble at you," he reassures him. "But, yeah, the doctors could give you a new leg just like they did me."

Katniss' breath catches as Finn whispers, "Then why didn't they give my daddy a new head?"

Six years-old is way too young to know about this, she thinks. The war. How Finnick died. How Peeta lost a leg in the arena. She feels a rush of affection towards the little boy, and Katniss just wants to hold him against her chest and cry and tell him she's sorry that he doesn't have a daddy because of her stubbornness and her idiocy, that his daddy would be so proud of him and that he looks so, so much like him.

But Peeta handles the situation way better than she ever could. "It's not always that easy, Finn," he says softly, brushing some flour off of his cheek. "Do you remember last summer, when you climbed the cherry tree without asking for help and fell?" he asks. The little boy nods, unshed tears burning at the corners of his eyes. "Your arm hurt a lot and the doctor said it was broken, so you had to wear it in a sling and at first, it was really hard to do anything. But then, you learned how to button your shirt with only one hand and you were very proud. It was the same with my leg. You can ask Katniss, sometimes she'd run to me and I'd just trip and fall," he goes on, giving a smile to Katniss over Finn's head, and she blushes as she remembers a kiss full of fur and lipstick and snow. "It was hard but then I got used to it, and now I can run just like before."

Finn seems to think about it for a minute before he adds. "They gave you a new leg because you had another one that was still working?" Peeta nods. "But if you have only one thing, they can't replace it?"

It's a childish simplification of something that even Katniss _still_ doesn't understand – how people can be beautiful and brilliant and brave one moment and then be _dead_ the next one. But Finn is just a child and he doesn't need to hear that. "Something like that," Peeta replies simply. "If they could have given your daddy a new head, they would have. But there are some things you just can't replace."

Finn nods his head, and the next second heavy tears are spilling uncontrollably from his sea green eyes. Peeta gathers him in his arms and Finn hides his face in the crook of his neck, his little arms wrapped tightly around him. Katniss watches them as Peeta rubs his hands down the boy's back, and she remembers the first time that Annie put the baby in those same strong arms. She remembers little one year-old Finn taking his first steps in Haymitch's backyard, Annie smiling encouragingly at him as Johanna made faces behind her. She remembers three year-old Finn taking a nap with Peeta under the cherry tree, curled up to his side. She remembers hearing him sob after falling from the same tree two years later, and how soft words from his mom and a magical healing muffin from Peeta had made him smile again.

She thinks that Peeta would be a wonderful father, if only he had not married _her_.

* * *

><p>She hates winter.<p>

The woods are silent and the lake is frozen and she's stuck inside the house and inside her own damn head. She keeps thinking about how everything she touches dies, how she almost lost Prim in the dead of winter, no food and no fire to warm her; how her mother just disappeared and how lost and lonely she would feel.

As she sits by the fireplace one afternoon, she dozes off and in her nightmare, the flames lick at Prim's body and she comes to with a scream that the entire district hears.

After that, Katniss just refuses to spend the day alone. Peeta had already told her that he would love some company at the bakery, but in her head the bakery is his just like the woods are hers – she loves him but she needs some time _without him_, too. So she tries to wake Haymitch from his torpor, but he hates winter, too; the train doesn't run and they have to regulate his liquor consumption until spring comes back. They're both a wreck.

But Peeta persists in rising with the sun every morning, and Katniss knows she just can't let the darkness engulf her because he deserves so much more than to come home to a ghost. So, one morning as he gets up, she does the same. Peeta smiles at her and she kisses him like it's summer, grabbing at the collar of his shirt, almost pulling him back under the sheets; he laughs against her mouth and it warms her up even more than the fire crackling in the hearth downstairs. "What made you change your mind?" he asks her as he finally pulls back, brushing some hair off of her forehead.

"_You_," she simply replies. His brow furrows for a second and Katniss drops a kiss on his nose, laughing. She doesn't know how to say it – it's _always_ him. She wakes up in the morning, feeling like she doesn't deserve to be with him because of every life she took, and then he smiles at her and says he loves her and she knows that this is what Prim and Finnick and Madge and Boggs would have wanted for them. They fight and she thinks that _that's it_, that he's going to leave her, and then he pins her to the wall and kisses her like he would _die_ if he stopped and she wants to say she's sorry for ever doubting him. It's _him_.

She gets dressed while he makes breakfast, and then she crosses the little distance between their house and Haymitch's, a bucket filled with snow in hand that she drops on top of his head. The old man screams and shouts and almost slices her in two with his knife and she laughs – she just can't stop. It's winter but inside of her it's summer and she's not going to let Haymitch wallow until the sun and the birds and the flowers and the booze come back. She leaves his house just after, insults following her, and half an hour later, a showered, dressed Haymitch.

They sit together at the breakfast table, Peeta, Haymitch and her, and she tries to show Haymitch that he won't regret it, that he'll have tons of free muffins and cupcakes waiting for him at the bakery. He grumbles, says that he could just as well wait for Peeta to bring some tonight, but Katniss insists until he agrees to go with them.

"What's gotten into your girl?" Haymitch whispers to Peeta as they leave the house in a flurry of scarves and gloves and earmuffs. Peeta just shrugs at him before taking her hand, too happy to care.

She spends the day behind the counter with the clients, making regular visits to the kitchen to trace her finger on top of a cookie's frosting much to Peeta's fake annoyance. They end up fighting with flour and sugar and his lips crashing against hers until they hear Haymitch apologize to people because their baker is too busy with his pretty wife to take care of them. Katniss looks at the mess, and for once she doesn't feel guilty for wasting food and being young and silly – people are well-fed now, no one is starving or freezing to death anymore, and she _is_ young and she has the right to be silly and happy and in love.

She goes back to the counter without bothering to tame her hair or brush her floury cheeks. "Sorry for the wait," she says sheepishly to the first customer before handing them the bread they've asked. Peeta makes an appearance and helps her, putting his finger on his lips before discreetly dropping cookies in little hands.

Katniss can't help the welling in her eyes as she watches him. She remembers Prim dragging her to the bakery to look at the cakes in the window, cakes that she could never afford, not even once a year for her birthday. She remembers his father's kindness, and how he would give her more than a single squirrel deserved in return. She remembers his mother threatening to call the Peacekeepers and have her arrested, and then Peeta taking a beating to throw her the bread that had saved her life. As she looks at him now, simply offering cookies to children to make them smile, she just can't stop the tears.

She goes back to the kitchen before he can see it, and when she feels a hand on her shoulder, Katniss just lets them flow. "What's gotten into you?" Haymitch grumbles, awkwardly patting her head. "You're not pregnant, are you?" he asks. "With all these mood swings and your general craziness…"

She shakes her head no quickly. "It's just that…" She pauses, sniffling loudly before wiping her eyes against her sleeve. "The cookies…the bread…he just always gives without asking anything in return, and, _I_ – I just…"

"You just don't make any damn sense, sweetheart," Haymitch finishes for her. "You're gonna have to calm down because the kid is completely lost right now and I sure as hell ain't gonna take care of those customers for him." He runs his thumb on her cheek quickly to wipe away her tears. "And please, by all means close your damn window tonight when you tell him, okay?" Haymitch pleads before storming out.

When she leaves the kitchen, Peeta immediately reaches out for her, wrapping his arm around her waist. "You okay?" he asks gently, taking in her red puffy eyes. "I can close early if you're not feeling good, you know. We can go home now."

Katniss just shakes her head no again. "We certainly cannot leave until everyone gets a cookie," she chides him, patting his chest reproachfully.

"That I agree with," Haymitch mumbles, his mouth full. He grabs half a dozen cookies and stuffs them in his pockets before saying he's going home, giving a wink to Katniss before the door closes behind him.

They close the bakery a couple hours later, when every single cookie has found a kid to devour them. One of Peeta's employees almost hushes them out, saying that they need to spend some time together, and Katniss wonders for a moment if people thought that her sudden outburst was due to a pregnancy. They walk back home hand in hand, kids playing in the snow waving at them, and she almost wants to stop and play with them but at the same time she can't wait to be home and tell Peeta that in a few winters, he'll be able to build a snowman with his own son or daughter.

"What's gotten into you?" Peeta asks her as she just can't stop smiling. Katniss just shrugs and he pulls her flush against him. "Well, I don't know what it is, but I like it," he says before pressing his lips to hers.

"You're so cheesy," she tells him, laughing against his mouth. She wraps her arms around his neck and he twirls her around and they end up falling in the snow, just like they did ten or fifteen years ago. He's smiling as he looks up at her, and she thinks that there's nothing she wouldn't do to see this smile on his face for the rest of their life. So she just tells him, right there and then. "I'm ready to have a baby."

Peeta looks stunned, his blue eyes widening as realization dawns on him. He frowns, grins like a fool before frowning again, and Katniss can't help but lean down and kiss him. When she pulls back, she just smiles down at him until he calms down enough to articulate. "What made you change your mind?" he asks, still looking unsure and excited at the same time, and she knows that he needs her to confirm it before twirling her and falling in the snow again.

She has no better answer than the one she gave him earlier. "_You_."

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><p><em>the end<em>


End file.
